This invention relates to a watercraft mooring device and methods for its assembly and use.
Various watercraft mooring devices have been developed for mooring of a watercraft, such as a boat, to a dock. Two such devices are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,708,083 of Billings and U.S. Pat. No. 4,977,846 of Landa et al.
The Billings device comprises a spacer tube having end fittings mounted on each respective end of the spacer tube, a cleat mounted to the exterior surface of the spacer tube, and a cord which is received through apertures in the end fittings to form a loop at each end of the spacer tube. The mooring device is connected between a boat and dock by tightly wrapping one loop around the cleat on the boat to thereby seat one end fitting against the boat cleat, and wrapping the other loop around a cleat on the dock to similarly seat the other end fitting against the dock cleat. The cord is then fastened to the cleat on the spacer tube. The Billings device effectively moors a boat to a dock while spacing the boat from the dock, but leaves the cord totally exposed outside of the spacer tube. When storing the device in, for example, a deck locker on the boat when not in use, the exposed cord can become entangled with other items (such as fishing tackle) in the locker. The exposed cord also speeds the deterioration of the cord due to exposure to the elements. Furthermore, the Billings device will not allow mooring of a boat to a dock at substantially different vertical levels and will not effectively accomodate the rise and fall of the water, due to the very tight connection between the end fittings and the respective cleats of the boat and dock.
The Landa device comprises a mooring arm, similar to the spacer tube of the Billings device, having one end which pivotally connects to a bracket mounted to a dock, and another end which connects to a boat cleat by means of a looped rope extending from such end. The Landa device overcomes some of the disadvantages of the Billings device by enclosing the rope within the mooring arm and by pivotally connecting one end of the mooring arm to the dock to allow for variations in the vertical level of the boat. However, the Landa device lacks versatility insofar as (1) a bracket structurally compatible with the mooring arm must be premounted to a dock for the device to be functional, and (2) a pair of brackets mounted to a dock in accordance with typical practice may have a distance between the brackets which does not match the distance between the corresponding pair of cleats on many boats. In regard to (2), it should be noted that the distance between pairs of cleats on a boat are not standardized and therefore vary widely.